South Korea's ruling conservative party’s presidential nominee has suffered a major setback after she made an offensive remark about a notoriously unfair trial made under her father’s authoritarian rule.

Former President Park Chung-hee is one of the most polarizing figures in South Korean history. The country achieved tremendous wealth and rapid development under his rule, but his era is also remembered as the darkest time of Korean democracy.

After he declared a state of emergency, numerous political rivals, activists, journalists and irrelevant citizens were jailed, tortured and even sentenced to death without proper trials, often under the false pretense that they were spies dispatched from North Korea. Even for conservative people who feel nostalgic about the ‘the good old days’, it is often referred as the ‘scary time when people disappeared for no reason’.

A parody of Park Guen-Hye uploaded by Twitter user @fishnote. The image mocking Ms. Park as a princess holding a poisoned apple with her father's face on was originally a poster created by a South Korean Pop Artist, Lee Ha. Lee faced a light penalty for violating the election law for posting this image in several places.

This year, former President Park’s eldest daughter, Park Guen-hye has decided to run for presidency. With only few months left before the December presidential election, Park’s rating has plummeted.

Recently, when a radio talk show host asked [ko] Park whether she was willing to apologize for the InHyukDang Incident (or People's Revolutionary Party Incident), a trial that sentenced eight innocent citizens to death and executed them within 18 hours, Park avoided giving a direct answer and said ‘there are two verdicts’ and ‘the history will judge the case’.

The victims family released a statement [ko] and the law students on national scale filed a petition [ko] expressing concerns over the presidential candidate's ignorance and flawed historical understanding.

Park hurriedly said [ko] she would “clear/resolve all the historical issues” and held a press conference [ko] on September 24, 2012, apologizing for her father's rule. However, it was not convincing enough for voters to change their minds.

Ms. Park said she will ‘go over all the historical issues’ in tomorrow's press conference. Is she one of those private tutors teaching a crash course on history? You really think you can put all the issues aside just by making some comments?

The reason Ms. Park apologized throughout the press conference was to create a loophole that enables her to escape future attacks. It is like paying an insurance to prepare for time when people raise questions again on her historical perspective during the vetting process. By saying ‘but I apologized!’ she could make the one who is questioning look like (a bad guy who is) launching a negative campaign attack.

If you apologized for the past historical tragedy to a point your eyes turned red (because of tears), it is natural to maintain that apologetic tone and lay low through out that day. However, Park, right after the press conference, laughing and giggling, did the jockey dance [Psy's horse-riding dance]. That is why the victims’ families criticize her for lacking sincerity.

Why dont we just take Park's apology as it is. We will eventually learn whether it was true or not in less than a week by observing her words and actions. Based on what Saenuri [:the ruling conservative party] had done in the past, I can easily guess this stunt is to escape a bigger fire. But still, don't lambaste or denigrate her message in advance. It will only give them an excuse to attack us back.

@kktpaulwrote [ko] it is nearly impossible for people's minds to change:

Park's apology was made to appeal voters. It is not genuine. How can a person's historial view which formed over several decades and engraved to the individual personality to the core, can change in a day? Yesterday, Kim Jae-won, a new spokesperson for Saenuri party commented that “Ms. Park is ‘doing politics’ [direct translation] for her father”, which I believe is (a correct observation of) the mind set of Park.